Zooey Deschanel has been largely absent from our screens over the
past couple of years - but happily, it's for several solid reasons.
Here's why you haven't seen Zooey Deschanel in TV or movies as much lately.
From 2011 to 2018, Zooey Deschanel starred as Jessica Day - a sweet, quirky teacher who moves
in with three strangers in Los Angeles after a terrible breakup -- on the hit comedy New Girl.
"Who’s Jess?"
Though the role netted her Emmy and Golden Globe nominations,
it may have also pigeonholed her as a performer.
There's no question that Jess and Deschanel share a lot of traits, from their musical talents to
their love of vintage clothing, and early seasons of New Girl really leaned on those similarities.
The show sharpened a bit in later seasons, and even poked fun at Jess's highly manicured
quirkiness. Unfortunately, if you didn't invest in New Girl longterm, you missed all that evolution,
which potentially made her harder to cast in roles that differed too drastically from Jess.
Between her leading role on New Girl and her starring turn alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt
in 500 Days of Summer, the fact is that many of Deschanel's most high-profile characters fit the
definition of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl." A term coined by critic Nathan Rabin after he saw Cameron
Crowe's 2005 film Elizabethtown - specifically, to address Kirsten Dunst's character - it became
a catchall phrase for quirky female characters,
and unfortunately, Deschanel fit the stereotype to a T, at least superficially.
For example, 500 Days of Summer's leading lady, Summer, could best be described as a
Manic Pixie Dream Girl by detractors who would prefer to ignore the depths of the
character — as well as the strength of Deschanel's performance - diminishing
Summer to a girl who loves vintage clothes, is tweely eccentric, and who encourages the
film's male protagonist to make big choices in his life. Rabin ultimately apologized for even
creating the concept of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl years later, but the popularity of the
trope - and its backlash - may have affected Deschanel's opportunities in Hollywood.
Plenty of actors have moved into producing while still appearing in front of the camera - even
megawatt stars like Brad Pitt, who actually won his first Academy Award for producing 12 Years
a Slave several years before he won a competitive Oscar for acting. Zooey Deschanel is no different.
In fact, she moved behind the camera on New Girl during its run. In 2011, she became a producer,
and from 2014 until the show ended in 2018, also served as an executive producer.
Deschanel also ventured into producing some other projects throughout her run on New Girl.
Even if she isn't appearing onscreen, in other words,
there's always a chance Deschanel could produce again if the right project catches her eye.
Aside from her acting career, one of Zooey Deschanel's longtime passion projects
has been promoting vegan and vegetarian lifestyles
while helping consumers understand where their food actually comes from. For multiple seasons,
Deschanel has hosted the webseries Your Food's Roots, where she talks to farmers,
nutritionists, food historians, and other experts about how the food you choose affects you
as well as the people around you, larger communities, and the Earth as a whole.
In fact, working on the show encouraged Deschanel to become a vegetarian to adopt
more ethical food practices. As she once explained to People magazine, she learned
so much about where her food was really coming from, that she began paying more attention.
"The main thing is it's just so hard to know where meat is coming from.
It's so difficult to know if it was sustainably raised [or] humanely raised. I really felt like
I couldn't be sure where it was coming from most of the time. So I stopped eating meat."
Near the height of her career momentum in 2011, Zooey Deschanel found time to create a place for
women of all ages online. Alongside co-founders Molly McAleer and Sophia Rossi, Deschanel founded
HelloGiggles just as she landed her starring role on New Girl. According to HelloGiggles itself,
the site is meant to serve as a, quote, "positive online community for female-identifying readers,"
and covers everything from beauty to relationship to finance.
To do this, the site combines personal essays with news, lists, and columns.
In 2015, Deschanel, McAleer, and Rossi sold HelloGiggles to Time Inc., but still continued
overseeing the website as it gained an even wider audience. As Deschanel told the Los Angeles Times
in a statement, the purchase meant the trio and their staff would be able to reach an even wider
audience through the resources offered by Time. HelloGiggles is still around to do that today.
In 2015, Zooey Deschanel took on one of the most important roles of her life - becoming
a mother - with the birth of her first child, daughter Elsie Wolf. In 2017, with then-husband
Jacob Pechenik, she had a son, Charlie Wolf, before the couple parted ways in 2019.
In 2018, Deschanel told InStyle that she was in no rush to return to acting,
preferring to focus on her children.
"I'm just looking for something that would be exciting and fulfilling for me. I have two kids,
and they're very important to me. I'm really focused on them,
so I want to make sure that whatever I do next
is really good. It has to be really good for me to leave them [and go to work]."
By Deschanel's own admission, she's also a very hands-on parent, as she also told InStyle
"I mean, I'm driving my kids to every class, every day. I'm there with them all the time.
It's actually rare that I'm not with them. I try to be there as much as humanly possible."
Ever since New Girl ended in 2018, audiences haven't seen Zooey Deschanel onscreen
in an acting role. But if you listen closely to some recent - and huge - children's movies,
you'll be able to hear her distinctive voice. Live-action acting might be on hold,
but voice acting is still a part of Deschanel's working life.
In 2016, Deschanel began appearing in the enormously successful Trolls franchise,
voicing Bridget, a member of the antagonistic Bergen race. However,
Bridget is a particularly sweet Bergen, harboring a secret crush on the Prince of the Bergens,
Gristle Jr., and working as a scullery maid in the palace.
"You love Gristle, too? You better back off, girlfriend."
After the first film, Deschanel returned not only for the much-anticipated 2020 sequel
Trolls World Tour, which marked her first acting gig since 2017,
but she also appeared in NBC's Trolls Holiday special, reprising her role as Bridget in both
projects. Whether it's to cater to her children or just because voice work is a fun gig for
major actors to play with, Deschanel is clearly doing well with her work in the Trolls movies.
Even throughout the highest highs of her film and television career, Zooey Deschanel always
kept her true passion project, the band She & Him, alive. Alongside partner M. Ward, the duo
has released several albums, and with Deschanel on piano, vocals, and ukulele and Ward on guitar,
the two strike a decidedly folksy sound. They've been quite successful, releasing
2008's Volume One, 2010's Volume Two, 2013's Volume Three and A Very She & Him Christmas,
2014's Classics, and 2016's Christmas Party.
Between albums, Ward and Deschanel also play live; as recently as 2019, the two were still doing
holiday tours, visiting several cities during the season to spread musical cheer. In fact,
during their 2019 Christmas Party tour, Deschanel was spotted bringing her famous boyfriend,
Property Brother Jonathan Scott, on stage during a show at the Met in Philadelphia.
After meeting during a taping of Carpool Karaoke in 2019, Zooey Deschanel and HGTV star
and Property Brother Jonathan Scott started dating, and over time, the two slowly made
their relationship public. Throughout several cute Instagram posts and other milestones,
Deschanel and Scott have opened up about their relationship,
and in December of 2020, Deschanel put in an appearance alongside Scott on his home network.
Deschanel appeared in an episode of the HGTV series Celebrity IOU, which sees celebrities
do special construction and renovations favors for friends and loved ones via the hosting and
producing powers of the Property Brothers. In this sweet installment, Deschanel helps out a longtime
friend - Sarah, who has been a part of her life since kindergarten — by expanding her home into
an open-space concept. Beyond Deschanel's amazing gesture, it's even cuter knowing that
she's appearing alongside Scott, her real-life partner, and supporting his television ventures.
Zooey Deschanel's blunt bangs, "adorkable" personality,
and ukulele-fueled indie band have made her an easily spoofable celebrity
over the years. Now that she's out of the spotlight, Deschanel is poking fun at herself,
and even appeared in a music video alongside Katy Perry to reference a long-running joke.
There's no denying that Deschanel and Perry look eerily similar,
to the point where Perry even admitted that she occasionally pretended to be
Deschanel to gain access to exclusive events and clubs. Finally, in December of 2020, the duo
made light of their similarity when Deschanel starred in the music video for Perry's song
"Not the End of the World," one of the singles from her Smile album. In the video,
Deschanel plays an unsuspecting human who finds herself held captive by aliens who really,
really like Katy Perry, and even try to get Deschanel's character to perform as the pop
star. It's a bit that perfectly capitalizes on the constant claims that the two stars are lookalikes.
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